The present invention relates to removal of the crop and other inedibles from a poultry carcass and, more particularly, to a flexible finger carrying flexibly structured rotary probe which functions to that end without either the probe or fingers during the pull away removal of these inedibles causing any significant damage to the carcass.
In the processing of poultry, chickens for example, a bird is beheaded, defeathered and internal organs removed from the stomach cavity. Various means for automated effecting of the foregoing operations are known in the art. Following these, the bird carcass hanging neck down on a conveyor with the carcass breast part facing either toward or away from the processing machine, passes to a decropping operation wherein carcass parts commonly accepted as being inedibles are removed, these parts comprising the crop, trachea, esophagus, and membrane.
Crop removal can be made with a rotary probe which enters the carcass cavity to remove the crop and other viscera parts by grabbing same, the probe being designed to enter and pass down through the neck passage and outwardly of the carcass, the removed crop and other viscera parts then being cleared from the probe before it retracts upwardly through the carcass for a new decropping operation. Representative of known such foregoing devices are those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,610,050 and 4,788,749.
The rotary probes described in these patents as well as others used in the industry are rigid, for example, metal components. Further the probes have rigid teeth, commonly placed at opposite diametrical locations on the probe. If the hanging carcass is only slightly misaligned in respect of the operating travel path of the rotary probe (which moves longitudinally in tandem with the conveyor), the probe in travelling a fixed course through the carcass may not find the portal to the neck passage --it is rigid and cannot deflect if such could remedy the misalignment-- and thus properly register with it so that the instead of passing through the neck passage, the probe is driven through the side of the carcass. The resulting damage can require reworking of the carcass and additionally, some loss of yield is to be expected.
Another disadvantage of known rotary probes is the potential for causing carcass damage with the rigid teeth of the probe. The teeth are used to grab the membrane, crop etc to be removed. In doing this as well as passing through the carcass generally, these rigid elements can strike and break carcass ribs, shoulder bones, pulley bones. Tooth action also can chew up the neck bone. All this represents problems in further carcass processing.